Follow the dots: the simplest way to track cycle time

This team wanted to track cycle time, and chose to do this by simply putting a dot on each card every day at standup. This way, you can count the dots on each card in the “done” pile at the end of the iteration (or any time), and understand average cycle time per card, or by point-size.

Cycle time for the story below is 6 days.

But this team took it a step further, colour-coding the dots by number of days in each process step. So, the card below spent 2 days in the backlog (green dots), then 3 days in build (red), and 2 days in test (black).

“Some of the cards had dots going all around the edge of the card!” says Gina. And sometimes the stories bounced back and forth between build and test (you would see this as alternating runs of red and black). Great fodder for retro.

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It’s important to note that this is our personal blog. Although Fiona currently works with Spotify and Nick works for Thoughtworks, everything in this blog is our own personal opinion. In no way are the views of Luna Tractor, Thoughtworks or anyone else for that matter represented here.